Visitors are not welcome at the safe house in Karachi where Dr Shazia Khalid is living; not even with an invitation. A police team is posted at the gate and army rangers prowl the grounds inside.
"You need the permission from the bosses at the top," says a moustached officer firmly. "The very top."
Hours later Shazia picks up the phone inside.
Her strained voice crumbles into sobs.
"We are very scared," she says, her husband at her side. "In Pakistan there is no law, no protection, nothing. Who can we trust? Nobody."
She has good reason to worry. Until six weeks ago the 31-year-old was a company doctor at the Sui gas plant, at the farthest reaches of remote Baluchistan Province. On Jan. 3 she was raped in her bed.
Normally in Pakistan, where crimes against women are rife, such an act would barely raise an eyebrow. In her case, it nearly started a war.
Members of the local Bugti clan saw a rape in their heartland as being a breach of their code of honor -- especially when the alleged rapist was a captain in the despised national army. They attacked the gas field with rockets, mortars and thousands of AK-47 rounds.
President Pervez Musharraf sent an uncompromising response: Tanks, helicopters and an extra 4,500 soldiers to guard the installation. If the tribesmen failed to stop shooting, he warned on television, "they will not know what hit them."
But the guerrilla attacks have escalated, propelling a long-ignored province into the headlines and threatening civil war. Every day sees a new attack on military and government targets across the province.
The Bugti leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, says the question of Shazia's rape comes first.
"As long as the perpetrators of this heinous crime are not dealt with, there can be no talks," he said.
That is small consolation to the confused and frightened couple. Speaking publicly for the first time since the rape, Shazia told the London-based Guardian newspaper that officials from Pakistan Petroleum (PPL), which runs the plant, at first drugged her to cover up the case.
"Before the police came to take a statement, the [company's] chief medical officer said: `Don't give them any information.' Then they injected me with a tranquillizer that made me drowsy," she said.
At the time, PPL officials said Shazia was unable to file a statement because she was unconscious. Despite her injuries, Shazia was offered no medical treatment by PPL and she had no contact with her family for two days. Then the company flew her to Karachi and checked her into a private psychiatric hospital.
Three PPL doctors have since been arrested on charges of obstructing justice. But despite weeks of police investigation, Shazia's rapist remains at large.
She said she did not know his identity.
"He tied my hands with a telephone wire and blindfolded me with a dupatta [scarf]. But I could feel that he had a moustache and curly hair. And I know his voice," she said.
Meanwhile Baluch police have re-interviewed Shazia -- this time insinuating she was engaged in prostitution.
"They asked me where I got the 25,000 rupees that was stolen and when I wore my jewelry. And they said that a cleaner had found used condoms in my room," she said.
Since then the police have announced that DNA tests on the main suspect did not match that found at the scene, heightening fears of a cover-up.
Weeks ago Shazia's husband's grandfather said the rape had rendered her kari -- a disgrace to the family honor -- and so she must be divorced, and preferably killed.
Such "honor killings" remain common in rural Pakistan.
But her husband, a pipeline engineer, says he is standing by his wife. His grandfather, he said, "is just a bad man, and this has made my wife even more scared. She cannot sleep at night, so I sit by her bed to take care of her."
For human-rights campaigners, the kari rubs salt in the wound of a case combining politics, violence and regressive traditions.
"In this country a woman has no status," said Shershah Syed, of the Pakistan Medical Association. "She is an object, like a cow or a bucket."
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was